1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display method and a display apparatus applied to various electronic equipments and a communication apparatus such as a portable radio telephone or the like to which the display apparatus is applied
2. Background of the Invention
Various radio telephone systems employing communication apparatus called portable telephones have been put into practice. In each of the radio telephone systems, basically, a plurality of base stations are disposed at a predetermined interval, and a service area is set around each of the base stations. Communication apparatus (radio telephone apparatus, i.e., subscriber stations) in each of the service areas communicate with the base station in the area and set a telephone circuit via the base station to make a telephone call to an optional party and to carry out data transmission.
In this case, the general radio telephone apparatus incorporates a secondary battery therein and operates by using the secondary battery as a power source.
A comparatively small radio communication apparatus such as a portable telephone or the like has a display unit such as a comparatively small-sized liquid crystal display panel or the like which displays various information in the form of letters, numerals and symbols. Information displayed on this display unit includes, for example, a telephone number for calling, a registered telephone number, date and time, a reception level, a remaining charge amount of the secondary battery, and so on.
If more information can be displayed on the display unit, it becomes more convenient in view of use of the radio communication apparatus to that extent. However, an area of the display panel is limited due to a demand for miniaturization of the radio communication apparatus and hence limited information are displayed by using comparatively small letters and symbols. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of a display panel of a portable telephone. A display panel 90 shown in FIG. 1 has a display area 91 used for displaying letters "{character pullout}" (this means "out of area" in English) which means that the portable telephone is positioned out of a telephone call area (out of service area), a reception-level display area 92 used for displaying a reception level of a signal from a base station in the form of a bar graph including a plurality of bars (three bars in an example shown in FIG. 1) as well as a symbol of an antenna, and a battery-remaining-amount display area 93 used for displaying a remaining charge amount of a secondary battery by using the number of display blocks in a figure representing a battery. The display panel has at the remaining portion a plurality of areas 94 used for displaying numerics and letters, the plurality of the areas 94 are arranged in a dot matrix fashion with predetermined columns and rows (in this case, letters of ten columns.times.three rows, i.e., thirty letters). In the area 94 where a plurality of dot matrixes are provided, numerics such as a telephone number or the like, a registered name, various messages etc. are displayed.
Since the display panel thus arranged has a dimension of a lateral length of about 2 to 3 cm and a longitudinal length of about 1 to 2 cm, representation of the remaining charged amount of the secondary battery is displayed with extremely small symbols, which makes very difficult for a user to see what is displayed. In particular, if larger display areas formed of dot matrixes for letters and numerics are secured on the display panel, the symbol display area becomes smaller, which makes it extremely difficult for a user to see what is displayed.
While a display panel of a portable telephone has been described by way of example, display panels of various electronic equipments are also encountered by the same problems when a state of an electronic equipment is displayed.